Usually, by the time you receive the diagnosis, you are already well into your pregnancy, the nausea has passed, you can start planning your nursery, the expectant mother is finally starting to blossom – and then, out of the blue, after a routine check-up, you receive the results: gestational diabetes. This is something that every expectant mother has heard of, of course, but you tend to think that such things only happen to other people. It’s a complete shock (of course, it could have happened to a close friend or family member and you were prepared to be affected, but let’s face it, this is not exactly how you imagine a rosy-hued pregnancy)! Then, surprisingly quickly, you are admitted to the diabetology department, or you may even be sent to a dietitian nurse for a consultation. The doctor estimates the amount of carbohydrates you can consume per day, divides it into 5-6 meals, assigns you the task of keeping a blood sugar diary, and then waits for a check-up.
For my part, I started to come to my senses in this phase a few years ago, I hope my personal experiences will help you if you find yourself in this same situation!
What is gestational diabetes?
In short: diabetes that develops during pregnancy due to hormonal changes, which in most cases goes away on its own after giving birth. It usually has no symptoms, so it is only detected during a stress test, through a blood test. During the test, after a fasting blood test, 75 g of glucose must be consumed dissolved in water, followed by another blood test 1 and 2 hours later. If the fasting blood sugar level is at least 7.0 mmol/l and/or the value measured at any time is above 11.1 mmol/l, then we are talking about gestational diabetes. If the fasting value is 5.6-7.0 mmol/l and/or the 120-minute value is 7.8 mmol/l or more, then we are talking about gestational hyperglycemia, which is a state of elevated blood sugar levels, but not yet diabetes – but it requires attention! Untreated gestational diabetes can lead to many complications, and should not be taken lightly.
I was set on a 185 g diet, but this is always determined by the doctor based on your results and anamnesis (and who knows how many other aspects). For me, this was divided into 6 meals, strictly every 3 hours – but for some people the doctor prescribes 5 meals, this is also unique. I received a booklet with the carbohydrate content of foods at the diabetology clinic, there were 1-2 things that I had to hunt down separately – for example, I definitely remember that avocado was not in it and I couldn’t find any specific data about it anywhere else. Fortunately, the store of calculators, applications and other useful things is constantly expanding, this site, for example, may be useful to you: www.kaloriaguru.hu . However, the first thing you should always look at is the packaging, if there is one, that’s for sure. For lunch, 55 g was allowed, which is the highest carb allowed meal of the day – here’s an example to give you an idea: 50 g of carbs actually means (before cooking) 70 g of durum pasta, which is about half of what I served myself before. You still have 5 g of usable carb credit left over, which you can use to make a filling sauce for it, or eat a mini apple the size of a child’s fist – because I’m missing fruit, which you can hardly eat from now until delivery.
And then comes Google, where you can find an endless amount of recipes and information, but how do you even start? It’s not a disadvantage if you have a lot of time, because at first it will probably be extremely difficult to calculate/pack/eat. Some people find it difficult to eat at a specific time, and some people find 3 hours to be an endless time between meals. I know the latter feeling, so my principles are:
1. Eat well at every meal!
Don’t try to reach the specified amount of carbohydrates within a meal by eating a smaller portion of semolina pasta, for example, because then you will be scratching your mouth with hunger an hour later. Make what you eat have volume! Eat a large portion of salad, for example, with a potato dish, eat grilled vegetables, meat, fish or eggs if you are not vegetarian. Make the meal consist of as many things as possible that are completely carbohydrate-free or have almost no carbohydrates in it, and eat carbohydrates in the required amount in addition. So, for example, a good meat/cheese/egg/seed salad and a little rice/potatoes on the side, not the other way around. Always have enough calories in your food, so for example, if you eat a vegetable with a topping and it has already maxed out the amount of carbohydrates you can consume, but you’re not full by the time you finish it, feel free to eat another handful of seeds, for example, or something that has very few carbohydrates but is filling in itself.
2. Don’t starve!
The doctor directly emphasized to me that you should never starve. If it’s not time for your next meal yet, but your stomach is still rumbling, eat something low-carb. Cheese, ham with lettuce, for example – but not a low-carb cocoa snail. Try to stick to your diet as best you can!
3. Notice what you are missing/longing for and find a compromise alternative!
If you feel like you can’t go 3 months without cottage cheese dumplings, fried rice pudding or banana smoothies, then eat them, but with modifications and with reason. It’s not worth eating a thimbleful of traditional food and then starving until the next meal. The calculated amount of carbohydrates from these is just good for whetting your appetite, not for filling you up! So either eat a hearty, almost carbohydrate-free main course for lunch and then eat a little of the dessert you want, or modify it so that it’s not a forbidden list. Instead of sugar, you can use xylitol or stevia – of course, these are not worth consuming unlimitedly either. Instead of crumbs, you can roll the dumplings in ground toasted almonds and leave out the jam, for example, you’ll save a lot of carbohydrates. For me, pasta is something I can’t imagine going days without, for example, it’s worth making a large amount of roasted vegetables, a cream-cheese sauce, and eating vegetables with pasta rather than vegetable pasta. You can also find low-carb dishes on our website – some delicious examples:
Strawberry and asparagus spelt pie
Greek salad
Briami
Asparagus and cauliflower cream soup
Broccoli cottage cheese pie
4. Don’t panic if you don’t get a good result!
Sometimes people make excuses – especially when it comes to restaurants and hospitality, even with some routine – or the body simply has a day when the blood sugar level rises more than the calculated amount. Note what you ate, how much you ate, maybe think about whether you were stressed about something, whether you drank enough water, how much exercise you did that day, all of this can have an influence on your values - even weather fronts. You can’t change what you’ve already eaten anyway. It’s also possible that potatoes containing the same amount of carbohydrates raise your blood sugar level more than the same amount of rice, or vice versa. Or the body doesn’t tolerate certain ingredients as well when steamed as when fried – you have to experience this for yourself. Note what caused the problem, but don’t get upset about it afterwards – that’s not good for the baby either.
If you feel like you can’t do the math, download an app for that (in Hungarian, for example, called Yazio) – I didn’t have a smartphone at the time, but I’m sure one would have come in handy many times :).
5. When you go somewhere, take a calculated amount of food with you!
You might get stuck in traffic or your schedule gets delayed and you won’t make it home for a snack/lunch, and if you suddenly go shopping, you might not get the healthiest foods from the store shelves. A combination of measured and chopped fruit, diet biscuits, and nuts/hazelnuts/cashews has worked well for me. The latter two won’t go bad if you need them on another day.
6. Cook something that can be calculated properly even if you divide it into portions!
It is worth cooking lunch/dinner for several days in advance, labeling everything and putting it in the fridge/freezer. However, in this case, be aware that, for example, in a hearty soup, the vegetable pieces will not be the same in each serving, so it will be difficult to count them. However, each serving of a good cream soup will contain the same amount of everything. Cream soup is surprisingly useful in this case – topped with cream, grated cheese, and toasted seeds, it is a dish with a good calorie/carbohydrate ratio.
7. Keep a diary of your meals and results!
Write down everything you ate and what values you measured – if you have a strict doctor, he or she will ask for this too. If something was delicious and your body didn’t react to it with high sugar levels, eat it more often. It can also be useful to face what and how much we eat overall – it wouldn’t hurt for anyone to do some self-examination like this sometimes.
8. Experiment!
If you’re craving something, make it, but customize it. Use ground seeds instead of some of the flour, or coconut flakes if the recipe allows. Supplement your regular meals with low-carb extra ingredients – for example, grate zucchini into tomato sauce, sauté broccoli in oil with rice for roast meat, make homemade fruit yogurt with berries,… You can develop many good habits now that will benefit your health later!
If diet isn’t enough…
And it may also happen that what worked at week 30 is no longer enough at week 36. Even if you do your best with your diet and follow everything, it is still possible that you will not measure good results. In such a case, the doctor will probably not tighten your diet – since both you and the baby need the nutrients – but will prescribe insulin dosage. The doctor will always determine this based on your values, and will tell you what amount and when to inject. I had problems with my values after breakfast, so I only had to use the injection in the morning. This is the second shock – the injection seems difficult at first, but you can quickly get used to it. Fortunately, there are tools available that really anyone can inject themselves. And you can really get through those few weeks with one leg!
And what matters most:
Exercise is important in this case too. Talk to your gynecologist before you start anything – but basically, if you are not forced to bed rest for other reasons, it will actually be good for your sugar levels. In addition, your circulation and oxygen supply also depend a lot on your activity – which your baby also shares with you at this time! You can read our article on exercising during pregnancy here!
Summary thoughts:
So the point is: there’s no need to panic. There may be many things we can learn from such a situation that will still be useful. People become much more conscious about their nutrition because they are forced to – we are less inclined to make drastic changes for ourselves, but when it comes to our future child, it’s different. There is a solution to everything, we can be happy that the question is not whether we eat, but what we feel like eating, what would be best from the huge selection. And after giving birth, the whole ordeal will slowly become almost insignificant. Try to turn the situation to your advantage – this is just a temporary period – and make the most of it!
